1) Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates to a vacuum wand assembly for extracting a product from a container, and more specifically, from a non-self supporting container.
2) Description of Related Art
Various containers are known to those skilled in the art for shipping a product, especially a particulate fill material. Such containers include large rectangular crates, or boxes, and woven sacks having an opening on the top. Once these containers reach their destination, it is necessary to extract the product from within the container. The crates are typically rotated and inverted and the product falls from the container. The woven sacks, typically called “Super Sacs” which are large canvas type bags, have a drawstring top, or similar, that can be opened and then the sack is inverted and product falls from the sack. Other non-self supporting containers are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,494,324 assigned to the assignee of the present invention and U.S. Pat. No. 6,012,266. The non-self supporting containers collapse as the product is extracted and have flexible sides. Therefore, it is difficult to invert these containers without the containers collapsing on themselves.
These related art assemblies and methods of extracting product from the containers are characterized by numerous inadequacies. First, dumping the contents from the container typically damages the product as the product falls on itself. If the product is fragile, then a portion of the product will be crushed by the weight of the falling product. Second, unlike the crate that is a self-supporting container, the product within the sack may be damaged when it is grasped and inverted to dump out the contents. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide an assembly for extracting a product from a container with reduced crushing of the product. It would be further advantageous to provide an assembly for extracting the product from a non-self supporting container without inverting the container or without toppling the container upon itself as the product is extracted.